Page 137 - 2606_PlugGPT_C7_Flipbook

TECHIPEDIA (PHP)

Today, we use various websites which accept data like name, address, etc. from us and return the

result accordingly. Do you know how these websites accept data and return the result dynamically?
This is possible due to the use of scripting languages. There are various scripting languages like
JavaScript, Active Server Pages (ASP), ASP.NET and PHP. Let us learn about PHP in detail.

PHP

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server side scripting language. It is very popular and powerful

language to develop dynamic web pages. It is freely available to use. It is embedded in HTML
pages. The programs written in PHP are interpreted by a web server. So, we need to install a
webserver before executing a PHP program.

Installing a Web Server

A web server is a program that executes a script and shows the output in a web browser. There
are various web servers which allow to interpret the PHP programs and execute them. Some of
the web servers are as Apache HTTP Server, WampServer, Nginx, etc. You can install any of the
web servers to execute a PHP script.

XAMPP is one of the most commonly used application packages that is a combination of a web

server and required libraries to run a PHP script. It is a cross-platform environment where you
can execute your PHP scripts. You can download XAMPP application from the following link:

https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html

After installing XAMPP, start the the Apache HTTP Server. Now you can execute your PHP scripts.

CREATING AND RUNNING A PHP SCRIPT

Before writing the first PHP script, you need to know how to add a PHP script into an HTML
document. A PHP script is added to an HTML document with the help of the PHP start tag <?php
and end tag ?>. The syntax is as follows:

<?php

//PHP code

?>
After adding the PHP script, save the file with .php extension.

Techipedia (PHP) 135